Oprah: Yeah, it's very hard when people have lost loved ones to say what kind of gift is this? I think it's so awful. We—you know, we resist it because people, no matter what's going on, even if people have been sick, you just—death always just shakes people up. We don't accept it as a natural cycle. Yes.

Michael: Right. Change is very difficult for human beings, period.

Oprah: Yes.

Michael: And so in asking a question like this, she will get insight. You will get insight, and it will come to you in a language and a way that you can understand. You won't waste this crisis. And when that guidance comes as an answer, it will follow with an action.

The Rev. Bacon: Yes.

Michael: Do this.

The Rev. Bacon: True.

Michael: Here's the path. Walk in it. And so instead of trying to fix the problem, you're trying to open yourself up to what question is trying to be asked here. What gift is trying to be given? What genius is trying to be activated within me? What power, what capacity, is trying to happen? And God speaks to us in our own language. So God is going to speak to you in a way that you can understand it, and you will be moved to become something, as Ed was saying, that you've never been before because this has never happened before.

Oprah: Okay. So God speaks in your own language, and it goes back to something you were saying earlier. You have to stay an wage to hear it.

Michael: Yes. You have to be interested and stay awake.

Oprah: Stay awake. Because the answers come but you have to be awake. I always ask that question, too, of every crisis. What is this here to teach me? That's the first question I go to. What is this here to teach me?

Elizabeth: And in this financial crisis now, it's not just yours. And that may be helpful for you, because we have all been in a trance in the late second half of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st. We have been in a trance around money and our economy thinking that it could grow and grow and grow and it would never have to live by the laws of nature, which is out of control growth, is cancer.

The Rev. Bacon: Right.

Elizabeth: And we're all going through this now. You're not alone in it. And our whole nation and world, because now we're a one-world community, is having to go through this self-examination. How are we going to live a sustainable lifestyle together on this small planet with resources that are running out? We could be about to go through a lot of calamities as a world culture. So I don't know if it helps you at all to know that you are—we're all with you. We are all going to have to self-correct the way we live around our relationship to money, saving, simplicity, scaling back and not experience that as some kind of taking away but more waking up to the kind of lifestyle that is sustainable.

Michael: I like what you're saying. On a national scale, we can't let this crisis go to waste either.

The Rev. Bacon: That's right.

Oprah: Yes.

Michael: And it means that we're about to give birth to a whole new way of living.

Elizabeth: That's right.

Michael: You see?

Oprah: We needed this.

Michael: Yeah. We have an economic system that's immature and has a hole in it.

Oprah: We needed a wake-up call.
Michael: You can't keep bailing it out because it's built on scarcity.

Oprah: I think I like, Liz, what you said too. It's a trance we were all in.

The Rev. Bacon: Yeah. We were asleep. Sleepwalking.

Oprah: Stupor. Just like a stupor.

The Rev. Bacon: Sleepwalking.

Oprah: Kimberly, thank you.

Kimberly: Thank you for helping.

Michael: This is a wake-up call for you, Kimberly. It's a wake-up call.

Oprah: It's a wake-up call. And it's all in your life to grow you to the next level because that's what the universe is always doing. It's growing us up. Growing us up and out and to become more of ourselves. We're almost out of time. But before we go, each of our teachers has some questions we can ask ourselves as part of a Best Life spiritual practice. So these questions will also be in your workbook on Oprah.com. So, let's start with you, Ed.

The Rev. Bacon: Well, I think intentionality is very important in life. Intentions don't go to waste. So I think it's very important to list the intentions that you would like in your spiritual life. My spiritual director teaches me that every time I begin to pray, it's important to write down my desires for that prayer period and then to list the movements of grace that happen during the prayer period. The same thing can happen about your life. What do I want to accomplish in my spiritual life? What are my intentions? Because that will impact your journey.

Oprah: Liz?

Elizabeth: Oh, I think I remember saying, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Oprah: Woo, I love that one too.

Elizabeth: And we spend a lot of time, all of us, defending our position.

Michael: Right.

Elizabeth: We have a defensive stance against life. I'm right. I know what's going on. I know what I need. It's the ego that you were talking about. And it shows up most clearly with the people we love. Our mates. Our colleagues. So ask yourself the next time you're in a disharmonious relationship with someone at work or at home how—why are you so invested in being right? Would you rather hold on tight to that stance? Or do you want to be in peace and joy with this person and this moment?